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Published: June 12th 2005
Coming into land at Cairns
With a view like this we knew we where in for another big change of scenery!"Totally Tropical!" Wow Australia really is the land of diversity. Ayres Rock, the red centre in the morning, jump on a plane, and we arrive in a tropical paradise with palm trees along the beaches and rain forest covered mountains down to the sea.
We spent the "arvo" wandering round Cairns city. It just doesn't feel like Australia here it's just to lush, tropical, humid and mountainous to be the same country! Cairns city was not as big as I expected but it is very touristy with loads of places offering tours and gifts etc. This wasn't a bad thing, us being tourists. The surrounding scenery around cairns is breath taking giving us both itchy feet wanting our campervan to get out into the rainforest and up the coast.
Next day we picked up our VanperCan (yippee) and headed for the rainforest up the mountains visiting Kuranda along the way up to Port Douglas.
There is normally a “sky rail” cable car over the rain forest to Kuranda but this closed for maintenance the day we arrived! Not all was lost as the drive was spectacular winding up through the rainforest with view across Cairns and the coast.
Arriving in port
Milla Milla Falls
You couldn't make one more perfect! Douglas you do get the sense of driving into a world-class location with fancy hotels and perfect palm licked beaches. No high rise here all very nicely done.
Whilst the beaches in North Queensland look like something straight from the Bahamas don’t think about jumping in as from October - May the waters are full of Box Jelly Fish and these little stingers can kill! Disappointing after being use to jumping in at any moment in WA but we soon found that the locals have other natural places to swim at the many magnificent tropical waterfalls and rivers.
Next morning Steph wasn't feeling too well so we postponed our trip to the Great Barrier Reef for a day and instead took a drive all the way up to Cape Tribulation through the Daintree National park. This is as far north as you can go without a 4-wheel drive. Crossing the river by ferry into the National Park gives you a feeling of leaving civilisation behind and entering a tropical jungle paradise.
Next day Steph was feeling right as rain so we headed down to Port Douglas Marina to catch the Quicksilver catamaran out to the Great Barrier Reef!
Wow,
Cairns City Lagoon
The people of cairns can't swim in the sea due to stingers and crocs so they built their own! what a day we had! I can recommend this trip to anyone who wants to sample the reef for a day. The Boat takes you 38 nautical miles out to a purpose built pontoon. This is where you can spend the day snorkelling, diving, gazing from the under water observatory and touring the reef in a semi submersible. We jumped at the chance of taking an optional introductory scuba diving session around the reef! This was the first scuba diving experience for us both and we loved it! It was like suddenly being granted access to another world!
Heading back south through Cairns swapping our rough running camper for vampercan number 3 and headed out to the Atherton tablelands. The tablelands, as the name suggests, are a huge plateau high up in the mountains. These were another big change of scenery with smaller fertile farms, rolling hills and awesome waterfalls.
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